Census Sparks A Feud Over Method

February 25, 1999|By FRANK JAMES Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON — The feud between the Clinton administration and Republican-led Congress over the 2000 census flared anew on Wednesday with the Census Bureau's announcement that it plans to use a controversial counting method to supplement the results of a traditional headcount.

In unveiling its revised plan for next year's national tally, the Census Bureau said it will attempt to count each of the nation's estimated 275 million people to produce a population number that the Supreme Court has ruled must be used to apportion seats in Congress.

The bureau said it will conduct a second, presumably more accurate tally that incorporates statistical adjustments intended to make up for those missed by the conventional headcount.

In its ruling, the Supreme Court said statistical sampling could not be used to correct its headcount of people who are difficult to track down, particularly minorities and rural Americans.

But the bureau said its reading of the ruling still allows the agency to use the disputed sampling method to produce what it believes will be a more accurate population count for uses other than apportionment.

Those adjusted numbers could be used for redistricting purposes by states and for allocating federal aid.

Census Bureau Director Kenneth Prewitt warned that congressional second-guessing of census methods was interfering with preparations for the decennial count.

Prewitt, who spent much of his career in academia, recalled that a member of Congress at the time of his nomination questioned why the administration was sending an academic and not a military general to lead the Census Bureau for what is the largest peacetime mobilization.

"Well, I suspect that any general who had the task that we now have would say ... I no longer have time to do anything but to make it happen. It's too late to tell me that you can't use air power or we don't want you to drive tanks, we want you to drive trucks instead.

"It's too late to make those kinds of decisions with respect to the census if we want to go on April 1 2000], finish by Dec. 31 for apportionment, finish it by April 1 2001] for redistricting."

Republicans expressed displeasure with the Census Bureau's modified plan. "While congressional Republicans are committed to developing legal, community-based initiatives to count everyone in America, I'm disappointed that the Clinton-Gore administration apparently will not allow the professionals at the Census Bureau to actually count everyone," House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., said.

Hastert also used the administration's words against it. The administration, as recently as November, said it hoped to produce a "one-number" census using statistical sampling. One number, it hoped, would avoid the confusion and mistrust of 1990.

That's when the Bush administration produced a two-number census -- the actual headcount and later an adjusted figure. The adjustment was needed because of significant undercounts, particularly of minorities.

"This political flip-flop on census guessing is hypocritical and confounding for those of us in the Congress who want to count everyone in America -- white, black, Hispanic, Asian and all other nationalities -- in 2000," Hastert said.

Rep. Dan Miller, R-Bradenton, chairman of the House Census subcommittee, was even harsher than Hastert.

"The plan by the Census Bureau to provide a legal, Supreme Court-mandated number to Congress and then concoct another number for the state is a recipe for disaster," he said.

"This irresponsible approach will only serve to confuse and confound the American people and create new litigation while hiding under a thinly veiled shield of so-called accuracy," Miller said.

"Every mayor, governor and county executive should be greatly concerned. The Census Bureau is peddling snake oil and they're headed for your neighborhood."